A new research report of information technology business decision makers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland shows opportunity for cloud-based automation technologies to rescue digital transformation initiatives

BERLIN, Feb. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nintex, the global standard for process management and automation, today published a whitepaper highlighting the key findings from a new SharePoint360.de digital transformation study. The research surveyed 280 IT decision makers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and identifies an enterprise need for cloud-based automation solutions including those ideally-suited for automating business processes.

The study surveyed IT leaders in companies with more than 500 employees in German-speaking countries about their usage scenarios, strategies and satisfaction with SharePoint and Office 365. Seventy-six percent of these decision makers expect increased productivity as a result of digital transformation initiatives. Fifty-three percent anticipate cost reductions and improvements in their employee experience.

To drive digital transformation, 59 percent of IT departments use employee collaboration tools, 53 leverage automation and workflow tools, and 39 percent of have turned to cloud infrastructures. Roughly three-quarters (74 percent) of respondents are already using the cloud or consider it to be part of their IT strategy.

Further, Office 365 and SharePoint Online use rose to 48 percent in 2018, up from a meager 15 percent in 2016. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed use SharePoint to automate processes—with 30 percent planning to do so in the future. The study reveals that only 11 percent of current users are satisfied with SharePoint's Workflows and Designer tools.

"Even though the Microsoft Office app ecosystem grows in complexity every day, business users support long-time favorites like OneDrive," said SharePoint360.de Founder Wolfgang Miedl. "Organisations in the region will continue to evaluate emerging applications from technology providers that help transform their businesses, with those providers catering to demands for in-region data centers will pull ahead."

Though only 22 percent of participants remain sceptical of cloud-based solutions, the majority (60 percent) of cloud sceptics would opt for solutions from European data centers, finds the SharePoint360.de study.

IT leads in process automation with HR, Finance and Customer Service departments following

IT is the pioneer in process automation and continues to be the lead department responsible for automating processes (74 percent) with others quickly following suit. The survey findings show the degree of deployment of process automation is rising sharply within HR (41 percent), in finance (39 percent) and also in customer-oriented areas such as customer service (33 percent), marketing (29 percent) and sales (28 percent). The results reveal that nearly every third company surveyed is active in process automation.

"It is critical for IT leaders to have confidence in the tools meant to advance their operations including those tailored for collaboration and process management and automation," said Felix Gremlich, Nintex's VP Sales EMEA. "Solutions like the Nintex Process Cloud, that combine power with ease-of-use, are ideally suited to help IT and business leaders rescue enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts with visual capabilities for configuring not coding the automation of business processes."

This latest research from SharePoint360.de also dovetails on Nintex's 2018, "The State of Intelligent Process Automation" study which surveyed U.S. decision-makers and line of business employees. The Nintex study found 64 percent of companies have followed a formal digital transformation plan for three years or less, and one-third have followed for a year or less. Despite growing adoption of these initiatives, only half of line of business employees are aware of digital transformation. This lack in awareness highlights the opportunity to drive better communication, engagement and collaboration inside organisations.

The SharePoint360.de digital transformation study was conducted from July to September 2018 in partnership by Stuttgart Media University and IT portal SharePoint360.de.

About NintexNintex is the global standard for process management and automation. Today more than 8,000 public and private sector clients across 90 countries turn to the Nintex Platform to accelerate progress on their digital transformation journeys by quickly and easily managing, automating and optimising business processes. Learn more by visiting www.nintex.com and experience how Nintex and its global partner network are shaping the future of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).

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